Dodge City Welcomes You
by TheOldWildHeffernan
Summary: 1872; the new marshal arrives in Dodge City. (Radio!verse)
1. Chapter 1

"How do ye do, mister?"

Matt hadn't actually gotten down from the stage yet. He had only awoke when it had stopped, when he began to hear people beyond the rattle of the coach. He blinked in the June sun. It wasn't as dry as Arizona, nor as hot. Matt felt like he got more air for his breath here, where there were things growing, even if those things were mostly grass.

"Uh, fine," said Matt.

"Well, that's good," said the same man, who was leaning on a post and looking, somehow, both bored and curious.

"One minute," said Matt. He took his trunk down, then his bag. He'd have to come back for the saddle. When he came back around the other passengers were leaving, but the townsman from before was still propped in place.

"Got a name, sir?"

"Matt Dillon."

"Oh, I see. That your saddle yonder?"

"Yeah."

"Will I help you with it?"

"Sure. Thanks."

"Alright, sir," said the man in a conciliatory tone that had Matt either vexed or, indeed, consoled, but which he was too far asleep still to say. He hefted the saddle and looked pointedly at Matt. He had a fuzzy sort of drawl and something about him that reminded Matt of a rag doll someone had thrown out of a train. He wore a worn-out duster and worn-in boots, with a confederate bodice and a felt slouch hat. Green felt. Dark green. But green. "Where you headed?" His eyes were muddy, and a little crooked–they went two different ways. No, it was his nose that went too different ways.

"You don't happen to know Ma Smalley's, do you?"

"Ma Smalley's? Why, of course I do."

"Well, that's where I'm to be staying."

"You don't say. Well, I best guide you there, then."

"Thanks."

"T'ain't _nothing, _Mr. Dillon."

He waited a second, then started off. Matt followed, from the street to the boardwalk.

"What's your name, then?" he said to the man's hat.

"Chester."

"Just Chester?"

"Chester Wesley Proudfoot."

"Glad to know you, Mr. Proudfoot."

"Oh. You can call me Chester. Most e'rybody does. Even most of the sprouts 'round town," he added regretfully. Matt snorted.

"That bothers you?"

"Me? No, that don't bother me. Not exactly. Here we are." Chester turned abruptly up to face a tall, thin house set back from the boards to make way for a tiny, covered porch. With both of them and a rocking chair, they took up all the space there was. Chester knocked with his foot.

"Ma?" He shouted. A stout, rosy woman as tall as Chester opened it a crack. She sighed. "Hello, Ma."

"Chester. What do you need?"

"Oh, I don't need nothing," said Chester, laughing faintly. Ma Smalley did not laugh. "Ma, I got the new marshal here."

"What?" She blinked, and in another second transformed. "Oh my goodness! Do come in, Marshal! And Chester too, of course." She stepped aside and shuffled them into a real, carpeted parlor, so soft all around it swallowed their footsteps. There was a pink sofa and a melodeon and plenty of embroidery, and a vase of enormous lilacs on the coffee table. Matt found himself wanting to blink to the ticking of the clock. You could hardly hear the street, and if Matt had been dropped here out of the sky, or rather the ceiling, he might have guessed he was in St. Louis.

"Do sit down, gentlemen. Can I get you some coffee?"

"Thank you, ma'am, that'd be fine," said Matt.

"Oh, good. It'll be just a moment–do sit down, gentlemen, please. You must be just worn out." She swept away. She was a sweeper alright. Matt felt sure she was a grand woman. Chester had already taken a seat.

"So," said Matt, settling on the other end of the sofa, with his hat on his knee. Chester was nudging the lilacs with his toe. "Who told you I was the Marshal?"

"Hm?"

"You told Mrs. Smalley just now that I was the marshal."

"Well, sir." Chester met Matt's eyes with perfect blankness. "Nobody ain't told me nothing, why, I just make it my business to see who comes and goes 'round here."

"If nobody told you, how did you know?"

"Well, I carry the mail."

"You're a mailman?"

"They ain't none other. Anyhow, as I say, I carry the mail and I couldn't help but know we was getting a marshal sent us, with all them circulars and orders and government things coming in for the US Marshal. We only got us a handful of town marshals and they ain't a one of 'em any good, I expect you'll meet 'em."

"They get much mail?"

"How's that?"

"The town marshals. They get much mail?"

"Oh, no sir. Ollie Topham does have a girl in Santa Ana writes him regular, but aside of that they don't get nothing much. Nothing of the government's, that's sure enough."

"I see, I see." Chester nodded. "You met the stage, though."

"Yes."

"How'd you know I was going to be on it?"

"I ain't."

"What, you meet the stage every time it comes in?"

"Yessir." Chester stared for another second. "Anyhow when I knowed we was to expect you, I went ahead and asked Judge Bent when he come through what Marshals was where, and he talked a good deal about Pat Garrett and Doc Holliday and all them fellas and said none a t'all of their moving, so t'weren't about to be them, only they got the only towns to my mind rougher'n this and I figured if I was a US Marshal I'd stay clear of here unless it was a improvement some way. And the only places colder'n this in the winter are way up into the mountains where they ain't no right towns to speak of, and the only places hotter'n this in the summertime are Arizona or New Mexico or West Texas, maybe, down over Live Oak County, only they ain't never had no law 'round there. They say if a man get hisself kilt down there, they ain't enough good men left to form a jury to try the bad ones."

"Yeah?"

"Mm-hm. So I figured you maybe to come from Arizona. I ain't never heard of no good towns in Arizona Territory."

"Well, there aren't many."

"Yessir, that's what they say. Then it happened Ma got your letter about lodging and things, and I kindly, uh," Chester lowered his voice. "Aggrieved her some a little bit ago, and I aim to make it up to 'er, so I says, Ma, when that new boarder of yours comes I'll collect him for you, don't you worry 'bout a _thing_. And I says I bet he's the new marshal we's to have, and you know what she says?"

"What?"

"She says I been reading her mail!"

"Weren't you?"

"Well my land, I gotta read a body's names and things. But I sure ne'er glimpsed the part where you was the marshal. I just seen your name and how you like a west-facing window when you can get it, Mr. Dillon."

"Oh. Oh, I see," said Matt.

"Reckon you'll be comfortable here?"

"I expect so. Looks like Mrs. Smalley keeps a nice place."

"It's Ma, not Mrs. She gets up a fair catfish muddle time to time, but you really want her chicken pie. My gracious…" Ma Smalley emerged then, with a tray of coffee wares and a look of welcome. She was around fifty and looked to Matt immensely strong in the head. She had written as a 'Mrs.'. Perhaps she was a widow.

"I'll leave the sugar to you, Marshal," she said, and handed him a cup. Chester took one off the tray and dropped some three lumps in.

"Thank you, Mrs. Smalley," said Matt.

"It's a pleasure." She grinned. "We're awful glad to have you here. Dodge City could certainly do with some keeping-in-line."

"That's a fact," said Chester.

"Where do you come from, Marshal Dillon?"

"Oh, _Ma_," said Chester.

"I was born in Louisville," said Matt. "My father and mother made it out to Ohio when I was small, but I ended up back in Kentucky before the war."

"Are your people still there?"

"Not anymore, no," said Matt. Matt's father was a serious man and a pastor. He died in Ohio, blind with fever while the winter screamed in the caulking. They brought his body back with them. His brothers buried him beside his parents in Kentucky, and when Matt's mother died, much warmer and less frightened, he was old enough to bury her himself. He was old enough to work, and old enough, in another year, to ride out through Missouri to the territories, and he had never since been back across the Mississippi except to accept this post, and that was different–Washington was foreign altogether. Matt had missed plenty of people in his life, but never any place, and he didn't suppose he'd ever live again where he was born. He didn't suppose he had the manners for it any longer, or the clothes. It had been fifteen years.

"They've been dead some years now," said Matt.

"Oh, I'm sorry, dear," said Ma. Chester nodded.

"Well, I've got a good memory," Matt said. "In any case I've been out on unorganized dirt so long I don't guess I have claim to much else." He laughed, and he may have sounded forced without feeling it. "The last couple years I've been down in Arizona territory."

"Was you a marshal there, too?" asked Chester.

"I was."

"My."

Chester stared while he drained his coffee. Matt was very glad, suddenly, that he'd arrived so near to evening. A new town could take the starch out of anyone, especially if one knew one came to stay.

"Excuse me, but I best get on down to the depot," said Chester, unhurriedly pouring himself another cup of coffee. "The Santa Fe's due ten past five. Thank you for the coffee, ma'am, and I'm right proud to know you, Marshal." Chester downed his fresh coffee, coughed, and left.

Matt looked between Ma and the empty doorway. Matt saw her shaking her head, out of the corner of his eye, but she stopped primly when he turned back to her.

Matt woke up slow in general. This morning was no exception, but somebody sure was knocking their heart out all the same.

"Okay!" Matt bellowed. "Take it easy, I'm up!"

"Mr. Dillon?"

"_I can hear you!_"

"Alright, sir." Whoever it was didn't have to raise his voice to be heard through the door, and Matt felt a little bad for shouting, for the sake of the other boarders. The knocker was asking for it. "I'm right sorry to wake you, but I come to tell you a man been shot down." Matt threw himself out of bed with some difficulty. For the first time since he'd hit Arizona, the floor was cold. "I seen it myself, so done some three, four girls from the Allafraganza and Pete Hightower."

"Well?" Matt got his second boot on, gave up trying to find the washbasin in the dark, and unlocked the door. He opened it to meet Chester Proudfoot, exactly as he'd been last they'd met, with the addition of a lamp. "What…" Matt yawned furiously, and Chester waited. "What happened?"

"Ye'll want your coat, Mr. Dillon. It's kindly gusty out. T'was Terry Black what done the shooting, and Raphe Gordon what's laying dead. We four of us and Savannah–one a' them girls–was sitting in a game, and Raphe all-of-a-sudden-like jumps up and grabs up the pot, all he can of it, and without nary a blink Terry shoots him. Smack between his mouth and nose," said Chester, pointing. "Through the teeth, like. Poor fella died a'fore he hit the ground."


	2. Chapter 2

"Did he have a gun?" Matt asked. "The man who died?"

"Yessir, but he hadn't time to draw, my gracious."

"What time is it?"

"Near four." Matt turned his back on Chester and yawned into his hands. He wouldn't be able to think in any fashion for another minute at least. Not at nearly four. "You take the light, here, I'll wait." Matt turned back to find the flame three inches from his face, and by the time his eyes cleared he was holding the thing and the door was shut again.

Matt sighed. He supposed, given the choice to wait, he'd have preferred the trouble start straight away. But a murder within twelve hours was more than he'd have bargained for. And it was murder, if this man hadn't drawn his gun. If a man could be shot for stupidity, then maybe that would be different. Matt had seen a lot of stupid things, and some of those stupid things had been in the midst of a witching-hour poker game. But he'd never seen somebody try and snatch the money from the table with some dozen-odd people watching. What did he expect? That he'd run off into the night with it? That they'd let him go?

Matt put on his coat and splashed some water on his face–ice-cold water. He'd have paid real money for ice-cold water just a week ago, and here he was, holding back a curse. But that's the way it goes, sometimes. Matt strapped on his gun and waited for his eyes to stay open on their own before he went out.

Chester jumped back into being by the lamplight, leaning against the banister, with a knife. Matt saw the gleam of it and had his gun out in the same moment.

But Chester did not come at him with a knife. He tried to back farther up, and when he found he couldn't he put his hands up. Matt looked at the knife in his hand and the look on his face, and when his eyes stayed frozen wide for the next few seconds, Matt lowered his gun.

"Look, I'm sorry," Matt said, after a second. "I saw you had a knife, that's all."

"Yes," said Chester.

"No, look. I wouldn't have shot. It was my mistake." Matt put his gun away. "Just making sure you're awake," he said, with a laugh that probably made him sound more tense, not less.

"...I was just fixing my nails," said Chester.

"I ought to've looked," Matt said.

"Yessir." He was beginning to look more angry than surprised, and Matt couldn't blame him much. "It's only a whittling knife."

"I see that now."

"Well." Chester lowered his hands and straightened his jacket, avoiding Matt's eyes the way you do an animal's, so you don't offend it. "You must be terrible fast when you're proper conscious."

* * *

Dodge was no quieter at four in the morning than it was at four in the afternoon. It was nearly as bright, with the saloons all ablaze and nothing much to block the moonlight. The silvery prairie rolled endlessly out, all around, and reflected the moon almost like snow, with a diffuse and eerie brightness that tinted the night sky orange. The pianos were all out of tune in different ways.

"These men–" Chester turned around abruptly and stopped.

"Raphe and Terry Black?"

"Yeah, did they know each other?"

"I don't rightly know. Raphe's a farmhand somewheres East of town. I don't believe I've seen this Terry Black before tonight. But we was in that game nigh since ten o'clock, so I reckon we know each other now. And Raphe and Terry, too."

"Did he say where he was from?"

"No, sir. And I weren't about to ask him."

"What, did he seem dangerous?"

"No, t'weren't that. He seemed right bashful. Said nary a word. He's a young fellow."

"Hm." Chester nodded and started out again. Matt could see two different men curled up under the boardwalk, and one more, quite young and evidently (all down his shirt) sick with drink, who looked like he'd rather be dead with it. He was sitting in the middle of the street, trying to talk to the people riding by. Matt hadn't even seen the jail yet. He really should have seen to that right away.

"I don't–" Matt began.

"Yessir?" Chester halted and turned again. Matt wondered whether Chester was trying to assert something, or if he just refused on principle to walk and talk at the same time. Matt sighed shortly, and began again;

"I don't suppose he was eager to hang around."

"No, I don't suppose so. He run off directly."

"What? You didn't hold him?"

"How was I to hold him and fetch you, too?"

"I mean the lot of you, nobody thought to hold him?"

"I don't know, sir. Nobody cared to." Matt ran a hand over his face. "It was a right foolish thing Raphe done. Reckon he was asking for it."

"Not legally, he wasn't." Chester shrugged.

"Well," he said, "It sure seemed a shame to _me_. Seeing as Raphe was a nice quiet fellow, and weren't hurting nobody, and he hadn't no place to run. But you know how 'tis."

"Yeah, I know how it is, it's murder."

"'Tis?"

"Yeah."

"My."

"Well?" Chester blinked at him. "Where was it?"

"Oh, yeah. Foller me."

The Allafraganza was plain wood outside, but inside it was red from floor to curtain. Matt's first thought, though he wasn't the expert, was that it must have cost a fortune in paint. There only seemed to be one group in the place, and they were gathered around what remained of a spindly card table. It was painted red, too, and laying on his face in the middle of the splintered finery was, Matt presumed, Raphe Gordon. There was a mess at the nape of his neck and a pool of blood about his head. His hat was in one hand, and a fistful of bills in the other.

"How do you do, marshal?" asked one man, as he stood. His seat would have been pulled up to the table, back when there was a table. "Pete Hightower," he said, and stuck his cigar in his teeth to shake Matt's hand. "Printing and missives by telegraph." Hightower was boyish sort of middle-aged, with a sandy mustache, and looked like he worked indoors. When he spoke he leaned forward and smiled, as if he'd practiced from some guidebook on the proper way to have a conversation.

"How do you do," said Matt.

"This is just terrible, marshal, just terrible," Hightower said.

"Yeah."

The girls–it was three of them, not four–were standing close together with their arms crossed. They looked cold more than they looked nervous. Two of them were dressed only in underclothes, and the third had a richly-crafted ball gown out of the last decade which, pulled about just so, seemed more brazen than just wearing drawers. But that had mostly to do with her carriage, really. Matt suspected she would have looked brazen in anything. He stepped over the corpse's legs to face them.

"Evening," he said. "I'm Marshal Dillon."

"It's morning now," said the one in the dress, in a tone that suggested this was a beguiling thing to say.

"I guess it is, yeah. I take it you were here for all of this."

"Yessir, Mr. Marshal," said a fair, moon-faced girl in underwear. Her wide-set eyes were round as silver dollars, and Matt couldn't tell whether she thought 'marshal' was his job or his name.

He smiled and nodded, but not too hard. Matt was notably tall, and hadn't been sweet around the face even before his teeth went bad. His father, who was much the same, had coached him very young on how to stand and speak and look at people–by people he meant women who didn't know him–so they didn't feel small in front of him–as a matter of decency, sure, but the fact was too that people who feel small feel trapped, and people who feel trapped do like animals do, that way, and bite.

And don't provide a lot of useful information.

"I see," said Matt. "Well, I know it's late, and I'll do my best not to keep you. Could you each tell me your name and what you saw?"

"I'm Dixie, marshal," said the girl in the dress. She sounded it, too. "Plain Dixie. There ain't all too much I could tell you, though."

"No?"

"I was on my way to the bar when I heard the shot. Just scared me half to death, why, _imagine_. A _gunshot_ in _Dodge City_." Dixie kept her face at that, smiling serene, but the blonde girl giggled. "So I'll be off to bed, Marshal. Unless you should want me for anything else."

"No, I don't think so," said Matt. "Thanks. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, _Dixie,_" she said. Matt raised an eyebrow.

"Goodnight, Dixie," Dixie nodded gracefully and turned to go. Matt nodded at the other two.

"Well, Mr. Marshal–" started the blonde girl.

"Say, Marshal," called Dixie, from the base of the stairs.

"Yes?" said Matt, after a moment.

"It's good morning."

"Yeah. Good morning. I'm sorry, miss, you were–"

"Good morning, _Dixie_."

"Good morning," said Matt again, shortly. Dixie laughed. Matt looked back down at the girl. "Go ahead." She took a deep breath.

"Well, Mr. Marshal, _I_ weren't at the bar. I were sitting just aside of poor Raphe, there." She pointed to the body's left. "And I seen him sure enough, he grub that money like anything." Matt nodded. When she stayed staring another few seconds, he realized she'd said her piece.

"I see," he said. "Did you notice anything unusual about him?"

"About Raphe?"

"Yes."

"...Like what, mister?"

"Anything. Did he seem to be enjoying himself?"

"I reckon he were, Mr. Marshal. I never ast him, though." Matt cleared his throat.

"I see," he said. "Well, miss...what's your name?"

"Mercy Bettcher," she said, her eyes as wide as ever. "But they calls me Savannah, here."

"Well, Miss Bettcher, why don't you–"

"They calls me Savannah, mister."

"Savannah. Why don't you come by the jail tomorrow, when you've had some time to rest and think it over, and we'll talk then. Would that be alright?"

"Sure, Mr. Marshal, if you like."

"Alright. Goodnight, then–"

"Oh!" She gave a sort of squeak and clasped her hands. Matt blinked. "I reckon I did see something!"

"Yes?"

"Yessir. Raphe hat a watch."

"...I see," said Matt. She nodded.

"And that sweet Terry Black, he hat a watch, too."

"Did they...do anything? With the watches?"

"Oh, just told of the time, I reckon. Only a real lot."

"Come to speak of it, that's right. She's right," said Chester. Mercy, or Savannah, beamed. "I thought the same myself."

"Thought what?" asked Matt.

"Why, that Terry Black; he was checking his watch just all night. Come a short while ago to just leave it on the table. I reckoned he might've been late getting on."

"Raphe hat a watch, too," Savannah reiterated.

"That's right," said Chester. "I ain't seen it, but I heared it clear enough. T'was practical agin my ear."

"I see."

"And Mr. Hightower, he hat a watch."

"Of course I have," said Hightower, scoffing.

"But Chester ain't hat no watch." She looked at Chester, still smiling, and winked. "I'd've know'd it, if you'd hat a watchr."

"No, I...uh. I–"

"You _hat_ got a watch?"

"No–"

"Where the heaven does you keep it?"

"_No_ I ain't–I haven't got no watch!" said Chester. "Never did have." He looked so vicious for a second that Matt thought to step between him and the girl, but all Chester did was flush and turn his head away.

"That's nothing to be ashamed of, Chester," said Pete Hightower. Chester put a hand over his face. Hightower snorted. "Just think, what would you do with a watch?"

"Chester?" asked Savannah.

"What?" he said, into his hand.

"I say something wrong?"

"I don't guess it matters now."

"Well, I–"

"You're shaming me, that's all."

"I am?" Chester didn't say anything else, and Savannah's eyes grew bigger than ever. "You ain't mad, are you?" Pete Hightower was biting his lip, looking gleeful. "What do you want I should...?" Savannah looked between Chester and Hightower, and the other girl, who seemed very little interested, and then miserably back to Matt. Matt wished very much that he could apologize for other people.

"Thanks, Savannah," said Matt. "That's fine. You can go now. Would you like someone to walk you home?"

"No, thanks kindly, Mr. Marshal," she said quietly. "I live just upstairs."

"Okay, goodnight."

"So long." She padded over to the stairs. Just as she mounted the bottom step, Pete Hightower burst out laughing. She ran the rest of the way up, and slammed the door shut after her.

"_Mr._ Hightower," said Matt. "Unless you know something real important you'd better go home."

"Oh, I don't know a thing, marshal, I never seen either man in my life before tonight," he managed through his fit. "Not a thing."

"Yeah." Hightower finally recovered himself.

"It's been a pleasure, marshal, a real pleasure," he said, shaking his head cheerily. "Oh! It about slipped my mind, here's my card–" he handed Matt, indeed, a printed business card; Matt took it without comment. "I expect you'll be requiring one thing or the other one day soon. And be careful now," he said, in lower voice, "The professional girls, you know, they tell you what you want to hear. Ain't that right, Chester?"

"Goodnight," said Chester.

"I'd take good care of any piece of you she hasn't touched, that poor chicken's got clap right through her brain–"

"Good_night_."

"Well, okay, goodnight, Chester. Same to you, marshal."

Matt sighed hard as the door swung shut behind him.

"Alright. Miss–"

"Rebecca."

"Rebecca."

"That's right."

Rebecca was a tiny, bird-boned woman, with a serious face. Matt guessed he'd assumed from that that she was young, but looking at her properly she was certainly older than Savannah and Dixie had been.

"Have you got a family name, Miss Rebecca?"

"I have. It's Samour. S-a-m-o-u-r. You'll have to excuse Savannah. She's new."

"She didn't do any harm. Had you met Raphe Gordon or Terry Black before tonight, Miss Samour?"

"I'd seen Raphe Gordon a few times. He was a hard-drinking man, but he hadn't much money most of the time, and he never bought what he couldn't pay for."

"I see. Did he come into town much?"

"No. A couple times a month, I should think. He was rather nervous as a rule."

"That's a fact," said Chester, clearing his throat and looking at the ground. "Right skittery."

"He never fought, though, as I recall. He rather just seemed to feel...to feel he'd been wronged, I suppose."

"What makes you say that?" Matt asked.

"There are some who feel wronged in the world. You know. If you take up his space you're only adding onto it." Rebecca had some hint of an accent Matt couldn't begin to identify.

"He did snap at the girls betimes," Chester said. Rebecca nodded without glancing his way.

"Oh, yes. But usually he was quiet."

"Yeah. Nervous and quiet."

"But not tonight," said Rebecca. "He seemed in high spirits tonight."

"Still quiet, though. Right peaceful."

"Yes, Chester. That's right." Rebecca looked dispassionately to the body on the floor. "Quiet and peaceful." She looked back to Matt. "He was smiling when he did it, you know. When he grabbed the money. I do believe he was pleased with himself."

"Hm," said Matt. "I see. Terry Black, had you seen him before?"

"No, marshal. Never. But I confess I looked."

"He was a good-looking boy, alright," said Chester,

"Yes," she said.

"Now, _he _seemed skittish, ain't he?" Chester said. Rebecca stared evenly to Matt's chest

"I never noticed, marshal." She was silent a moment. "Am I free to go?"

"Certainly, said Matt. "Thanks."

"My pleasure."


End file.
